Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Boycott NASA Conference Because of Ban On Chinese Participants
New submitter Eunuchswear writes "Congress has passed laws forbidding NASA from allowing Chinese nationals on its premises, so NASA was forced to reject applications from Chinese scientists to attend the upcoming meeting on the Kepler space telescope next month. This ban extends even to Chinese scientists and students working in the USA, angering many American scientists. Geoff Marcy, known for his work on exoplanets, is reported to be boycotting the conference. 'In good conscience, I cannot attend a meeting that discriminates in this way. The meeting is about planets located trillions of miles away, with no national security implications.' he said in an email to the conference organisers."
So. Let me get this straight. A Pfc has access to diplomatic cables and other documents with TS classifications; but a Chinese scientist can't attend a conference where the results are likely to be published in papers with no classification at all.
OK, I haven't read TFA (this is Slashdot) but the summary certainly makes it sound like total incompetence. I wish I could say I was surprised.
I bet I can explain this though. It probably has something to do with what happened at Los Alamos, where a Chinese scientist walked off with some sensitive information. The way to fix that problem was to make sure the sensitive information there was properly classified and restricted to people with the proper clearance. Instead it sounds like they decided to classify... a lot of science. Once again, incompetent.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
@moblaster,
You obviously don't know how research works. If you did, you wouldn't be using the phrase "allow their citizens to study and work here". American universities aren't "allowing" the Chinese, Indian, Eastern European and other nationalities' students to study here, they are profiting from those students working for them for a pittance here. Trust me, if American citizens were clogging up the system of doctoral programs in STEM then no university would be going through the strenuous process of getting foreign students to do the drudgework for their research standing glory. I'm a foreigner (not Chinese but that doesn't frikking matter) with a doctorate in engineering who is working here in the US. I'm sick and tired of short-sighted and downright Tea Party-esque nutsacks like you. We had a bunch of those crazies protesting outside our company a couple of years ago chanting the you-took-our-jobs mantra. I'd have liked to have gone down to ask how many of those ignoramuses had a doctorate in electrical engineering like myself, but I was afraid one of them might pull a legally owned and carried handgun and frikking kill me with it.
Our company on average pays about $40K to get a foreigner like me into the country. This doesn't include the cost of sending teams of engineers overseas to conduct interviews. Do you nitwits really think they would ever do that if they could find Americans who were capable of doing the same thing? I hire for our company now, and I know for a fact that we prefer Americans, as we damn well should, since this is America. However, we sometimes go for months without finding the right candidates because H1B season is over.
Finally, you're whining about China cyberspying on the US? Seriously? Is your high horse made of an alloy of Forgetnewseum and Ironyblindium? In this day and age of NSA scandals is when you decide to take umbrage at "billions of Chinese cyberattacks per day"? You're outraged at China's cyberattacks a few weeks after it became known that the US government spied on diplomatic exchanges and on diplomats themselves?!
Get a life, and some capability of rational thought.
It's more to do with the fact that NSA is running massive corporate, scientific, industrial and military espionage operations against everyone, particularly Everyone (but EVERYONE is also badly affected). I wouldn't let the Americans within 10 km (SI rules!) of anywhere.
FTFY!
No, it is the scientists, businessmen, and students doing the spying. That is how China does it. They have an espionage system that they compare to "a thousand grains of sand".
They are quite successful at it too. They have stolen everything from the most advanced US nuclear warhead design to advanced Russian anti-aircraft missile designs. They are not to be trifled with.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
One solution would be to give courts the option of striking down a provision of a law if they find it has no relation to the subject of the bulk of the law. But that would need a constitutional amendment.